


Not a Pretty Girl

by Aishuu



Series: Tsumego [5]
Category: Hikaru no Go
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Go Go Igo, Healthy Coping Mechanisms, One-Sided Attraction, POV First Person, The Livejournal exodus, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-19
Updated: 2015-02-19
Packaged: 2018-03-13 20:07:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3394736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aishuu/pseuds/Aishuu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaneko knows that the things she wants in life take effort and that effort is no guarantee of success. This is a tale of Kaneko's backstory and her relationship with Mitani Yuuki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Not a Pretty Girl

When I was ten, my aunt made me face up to a harsh reality. 

I was fat. And I would probably be fat for the rest of my life.

There weren’t any pleasant euphemisms with Tokiko-obaasan. She called a spade a spade, and a fat girl a fat girl.

“Masako-chan, there’s not much you can do about it. You’re fat. I’m fat. Your mother’s fat. Every woman in our family is fat. It’s genetic.”

I wanted to try those diets that I saw on TV, the ones that advertised miraculous weight loss and new lives, but my aunt had laughed at that. 

“Do you know what will happen?” she had asked me.

I had shaken my head.

“Your weight will start yo-yoing as you go off the diet, and in the end, you’ll weigh even more. The best thing you can do is eat sensibly, and try to keep from becoming obese. It’s better to be ‘pleasantly plump’ than obese.”

That didn’t make life any easier.

All around me, most of the girls were tiny and small, petite and Japanese ideals. I was round and large, and I had the grace of a beached whale. I didn’t like it. I wanted to be one of the ones who managed could wear all the cute clothing, and look like it fit me the way it should. But cute clothes weren’t designed for ten year olds who were already wearing adult sizes, and life didn’t work like that.

Tokiko-obaasan said one other thing that helped me that night.

“You know those stories about how the homely girl with the good personality comes out ahead of the beautiful girl who’s nasty?”

I had nodded, fascinated. Was this where she told me that my great personality would help?

“Don’t believe them. The world likes beautiful people, and you’re not one. And sometimes the beautiful people are nice, too. Masako-chan, life isn’t fair, but we deal with what fate we’re dealt. Don’t let it make you bitter - just remember that you are special, and that someone will love you for it. The pretty girls might be loved for their looks, but those looks will fade eventually. The fat girls usually have a better love, if they can find it.”

“Will it all come out fair in the end?”

“Hell no. Life isn’t fair.”

My mother had yelled at her for swearing in front of me, but I learned to be grateful for her bluntness. She prepared me for how tough life can be.

 

 

People liked me. 

That was an undeniable fact. I was likable because I tried to be nice to everyone. I didn’t deny the reality that things could have been better were I thin, but I was generally happy. I was a good student, and my stocky frame carried muscles that made me a good athlete as well.

All in all, life was pretty good. Then I got dragged into Go Club, and I met him.

It happened like this.

Shindou Hikaru was a kid in my class who was rapidly gaining a reputation for being a bit... odd. He’d talk to himself sometimes, and he adored Go. Still, he was nice, and I liked him.

The problem was that he was determined to get a Go club off the ground, and to do that, he needed players. So he spent a lot of time wandering around school, trying to persuade them to join, with little success.

“Shindou, no one plays Go nowadays,” someone was saying to him one day as I was about to go to volleyball practice. “It’s for old men. Go is stupid.”

I turned my head, waiting to see him explode. Sure enough, he flushed and went after the person who dare attack his beloved game. “Go is the ultimate game! It’s lasted for thousands of years, and it’ll be around long after you’re dust! You just don’t like it because you’re too stupid “

For some reason, I decided to cut in before Shindou could dig his own grave. “It takes time to learn, but it’s worth it,” I said, agreeing.

Shindou’s head snapped around, and his eyes lit up as he forgot the person who he had been angry at the moment before.

“You play?” he asked eagerly.

“Sure.” That was true. I had played with my grandfather, before he had died, and was actually pretty decent.

“That’s great!” Shindou said. Before I knew it, he was dragging me down the hall, and I sputtered in a bit of anger, trying to keep from tripping over my own feet.

“Where are we going?” I demanded.

“The Go Club!” he told me.

Just my luck, to be taken along with a Go otaku, I thought.

He slammed the door open happily, and when he announced that I would be the new member, a third year student gently corrected him, pointing out that I wasn’t a guy, so I wouldn’t be a viable member of their team.

Then Shindou suggested they dress me up like one.

As if!

I stormed out, proclaiming that volleyball was my top priority.

But the seed was planted.

 

 

It had been a while since I had played Go, but I felt the urge to begin again, especially when I heard that Shindou was going to be taking the insei test. It was hard to believe that the loud, boisterous kid who sat three chairs over from me was going to be attempting to become a Go professional. It was amazing that Shindou thought he was that good, but if he was able to, I was looking forward to having the chance to play him.

It only took another small push to make me decide to go ahead with it. The push came in the form of Fujisaki Akari.

When a girl with long brown hair approached me, she seemed a bit nervous. “Excuse me, Kaneko-san, but you said that you would be willing to play in go tournaments....”

I blinked, trying to remember her. Haze Junior High was large enough so that I didn’t know everyone on sight, but she was familiar, the way that a neighbor who you wave at without ever formally meeting is.

“I guess,” I said. I seemed to recall saying something to that effect.

She gave me a huge smile, and I realized that she was one of the beautiful girls my aunt had talked about. Grabbing my hand, her eyes shimmered as she pleaded with me. “There’s going to be a tournament at Kaio, and we want to enter. Kumiko-chan is willing to play, but we need someone else. Um... how good are you?”

I wasn’t sure of my exact kyu rating, but I took a wild guess. “Fifteen kyu, maybe, twelve? I never really bothered figuring it out. I just played with my grandparents, and they were both really good.”

She clapped her hands happily. “You’re a lot better than we are. Would you be our first board?” There was no embarrassment in her honest statement, just enthusiasm for the possibility of gaining a strong player for her team.

I blinked again, figuring out the Go Club was really bad. Still, I had agreed and it sounded like fun. I hadn’t played since my grandparents had died, but I had always been fond of the game. “Sure. When’s the tournament?”

“Two weeks from Sunday,” she said. “If you come to Go Club sometime, I can give you more information.”

I thought on my schedule, and realized that while I had time to show up for the tournament, coming to club would be difficult, considering my already existing obligations to my volleyball team. “I’ll see if I can get some time off of volleyball for practice, but if I’m not, I’ll go to Kaio that Sunday. Um... you never told me your name?”

She blushed, embarrassed by her social faux pas. “I’m sorry. I’m Fujisaki Akari.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Fujisaki-san,” I told her.

“It’s so nice of you to agree!” she said enthusiastically.

I went to Kaio Junior High as promised, and was horribly humiliated when we lost. I hated to lose, but even more so, I knew it was my own fault since I hadn’t practiced at all, and my game was a bit off balance because I was out of practice.

Go needs to be practiced to do well.

Kanzaki and Tsuda Kumiko weren’t bothered, though, apparently thrilled at just having the experience. They chattered happily about their games, and how thrilling it had been to play other players as equals, even though they had each been crushed. It brought a smile to my face, to realize they had had that much fun. I liked each of them, as well, since both were kind and treated me as a valuable friend, even though they barely knew me. There are nice people in the world, and they were two of them.

It was that game that was the catalyst for me joining the club completely. It preyed on my mind, knowing I could have done better had I only kept my skills up, and I thought on how there would be another tournament in the summer, one which I would probably be first board again at. I did not want a repeat, which meant that I needed to get practice.

So I made time to stop into the Go club - and that’s when I met him.

 

 

Most people would think that meeting Mitani Yuuki wasn’t that big a deal, and they would be right. Mitani is a sulky, rude brat, and he delighted in his own arrogance. But I was drawn to him, and I think that’s when my heartbreak began.

I declared that I was his rival, and watched him fume. It was fun to see such a good player get annoyed over me. His cheeks flushed, and it idly crossed my mind that he was kind of cute.

But I didn’t have a crush on him - not then. Tokiko-obaasan had made me cautious; the fat girl was always the best friend, never the beloved. Mitani was the kind of boy who would fall for a pair of pretty eyes and slender figure, anyway.

Well, that’s what I tell myself. I actually probably fell in love with him immediately, because I realized what was going on, and you can’t stop your heart.

We fought constantly, and he kept coming back for more, even though he wasn’t an official member of the go club. He had quit before I had joined, but he showed up just as regularly as any of us, saying that he was just looking for a game.

It was one of those issues that you knew better than to press, because Mitani was a walking time bomb. He’d fume at the very mention of Shindou, and whenever we tried to actually get him to admit that he’d play in any tournaments, he’d start yelling.

Until Akari gave him puppy eyes.

That was the trick. Mitani was head-over-heels in love with Akari, in an awkward, teenage fashion, and I found myself falling in love with him. What made the situation worse was that Akari was in love with Shindou. The thing that would have made it truly Shakespearean would have been for Shindou to have been in love with me, but I wasn’t the kind of girl that guys fell in love with.

Life didn’t work out smoothly. Shindou wasn’t about to wake up and realize that he loved Akari, and let Mitani have his hopes broken honestly. No, Shindou was too dense to know.

So we languished. I wanted Mitani, he wanted Akari, and she wanted Shindou, who only wanted Go.

Perhaps I should have confessed, and had my heart handed back to me, but Mitani wasn’t the kind of boy you confessed to. He wouldn’t know how to deal with hurting someone, and even though he pretended to be nasty, I knew that he was kind.

But it’s kindness that can kill you, just the same.

Over a year past like that, with us in that kind of limbo. And then graduation day came, and we were off... and things were settled, just like that.

Mitani was in a rush to leave, and never come back. He hated school, but he was good at it. He was good at most things, and I wondered where he was going for high school. We hadn’t sat through entrance exams yet, but I knew he’d probably be going. He was smart enough to want more for himself and realize high school was his best bet.

I caught him outside the school gates, hotfooting it toward the nearest train station. Not for him was all the celebration that came with finally completing middle school, and I was a bit wistful about that. It would have been fun to celebrate with him - but I couldn’t change him, and I wouldn’t. I liked him the way he was.

“Mitani-kun!” I called, clutching my certificate in one hand and a bag in another. 

Mitani had already managed to ditch his uniform jacket, and his eyes coolly looked over me. They weren't dismissive, but they weren't welcoming, either. "Yo, Kaneko," he said informally, and I was relieved that he paused long enough for me to fall into step beside him.

I smiled at him, feeling my heart in my chest. This was the moment I had been waiting for, the time when I had him to myself to confess. "What are you going to do now?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I've been accepted at Haze High School," he said, and scuffed his feet a bit.

I felt my hope plummet. "Isn't that where Fujisaki is going?"

"I didn't ask," he told me. "You?"

"Toriyama," I told him. 

"That's a private school," he said.

"I'm surprised you know it. It's a boarding school," I said. Even though it was located in Tokyo, my parents had decided that I would board. 

"You should have a good time," he said, and the silence stretched between us awkwardly. 

He was heading in the opposite way of where I needed to go, but I went with him. "Mitani..." I couldn't find the words to say.

"Yes?"

"Are you going to keep playing Go?"

He blinked once, before a slow, lazy smile spread across his lips. "Nothing could stop me. I'm still going to beat Shindou," he said.

It was ridiculous, and we both knew it. Shindou was well on his way to being one of the top young pros. "I'm still going to beat you first," I told him, smiling at him.

"No, you're not."

The next words just slipped out. "Of course I am. And when I do, you're going to take me out on a date."

He stumbled, before spinning around to face me. "W-what?"

"You heard me," I said, feeling shaken but unable to back away now. "When I beat you, you're taking me out on a date."

Violet eyes widened in a bit of panic. "Kaneko-"

"Please?" I whispered.

The thing about Mitani is that though he could be incredibly thick, he's not heartless. He seemed to waver for a moment before gruffly shrugging. "When you beat me at two stone, I'll take you where you want to go," he offered, then scowled. "But you're not going to," he tacked on hastily.

"I will!" I replied, clutching my diploma in front of me. "You wait and see!"

There was maybe a hint of amused affection in his expression as he rolled his eyes. "Whatever you say, Kaneko."

And then he walked off, and I made no move to follow.

I may not be as pretty as Fujisaki, but I'm at least as determined. And someday, I'll beat Mitani at two stone, and even if he doesn't fall in love with me, I'll know I'll have tried my best.

And there's nothing more I can do.


End file.
